Once Again, in Jerusalem of Gold

I’ve loved this song since I first heard it many years ago:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72QC8EGnxTw

Our Cruise Lady group slept in until fully six o’clock this morning.  (I worry that we’re being too soft on them.)  Then, after breakfast, we drove up to Jerusalem.

We looked out over the city from the promenade in front of the Seven Arches Hotel on the Mount of Olives.  Then we went to the Garden of Gethsemane, where I spoke to them for a few minutes and, after they had thus paid their dues, left them to walk about the Garden and to visit both the adjacent Church of All Nations and the Orson Hyde Garden above.

Following some shopping at Jimmy’s Bazaar in the Arab section of town and a good lunch in the Philadelphia Restaurant near his shop, we went to the spectacular Jerusalem Archaeological Park, where my favorite thing is the first-century steps leading up to the location of the temple — steps on which Jesus and the apostles very likely walked.

Next, we went to the Church of St. Peter in Gallicantu, the traditional (and quite possible) site of Caiaphas’s house, where Jesus was brought for his initial trial before the Jewish leadership of Jerusalem.  The dungeons on the site, and the first-century stairs adjacent to it, are impressive.

Thereafter, we went to the traditional “Upper Room” of the Last Supper, on Mount Zion, and, from there, drove through the ultra-orthodox neighborhood of Mea Shearim before checking in at the Olive Tree Hotel.

Returning to this city is always something of an emotional experience for me.

Posted from Jerusalem